1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to image forming apparatus and, more particularly, is directed to a portable graphic computer apparatus suitably used by children to draw a picture.
2. Description of the Prior Art
When drawing a picture, children used to draw a picture on a drawing paper with crayons and colored pencils, in which case a mistake on the picture could not be corrected with ease. Also, the children could not express their ideas freely by drawing pictures because the number of drawing papers is restricted.
Therefore, an image forming apparatus has been proposed, in which a tablet having, for example, a coordinates detecting apparatus, a personal computer having a software for processing inputted coordinates and a television monitor for displaying a video signal generated from the personal computer are combined to display a locus drawn on the tablet on a picture screen of the television monitor. In this case, the picture displayed on the monitor can be corrected with great ease, and the user can draw pictures freely over and over.
An electronic picture drawing apparatus is disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,764,763. In this picture drawing apparatus, coordinates are inputted by moving a cursor on a display panel by turning right and left knobs. Accordingly, the fundamental idea of this apparatus is different from that of the present invention.
However, since the tablet having the coordinates detecting apparatus and the personal computer having the predetermined software are independently provided as described above, the overall arrangement of the apparatus becomes large in size and the interconnection thereof becomes complicated. There is then the disadvantage that children cannot use this apparatus with ease.
Furthermore, in order to realize the above-mentioned portable graphic computer apparatus in actual practice, colors of, for example, a picture displayed on the picture screen of the television monitor must be changed in a version of, for example, 10 different colors, and various functions such as an eraser function and the like must be provided additionally. This needs many more operation buttons for designating colors and functions. If mechanical switch buttons are increased in this way, the mechanical portion thereof becomes complicated in arrangement and the manufacturing cost is increased.
Moreover since electronic, relatively expensive image forming apparatus is utilized, it is desirable that other more sophisticated functions than the drawing are also provided.